Last night I finally finished my baby cardigan. It has been hidden in one of my WIP-baskets for several weeks now. I love knitting, but I am not a big fan of seaming the knitted pieces together, especially since that usually involves cutting the knitted fabric open to make room for arms and buttonbands. For a long time my Mother did all the cutting for me untill I finally realized that I am an adult who should be able to finish what she starts. Cutting still frightens me, once the fabric is cut there is no going back.
The thought that the baby I knitted it for might outgrow made me rise to the occasion. Luckily, after several hours of cutting, steamblocking and seaming, the cardigan is finished and ready to be shipped off to a cute little baby girl.
I am very pleased with it, more pleased than I ever imagined I would be when I started it. The yarn is my usual for projects like this: Rauma Babygarn. The pattern is my "own design" or rather my own version of a traditional Selbu pattern. I really enjoyed making something a little "original." I am going to start a cardigan for a baby due in October shortly. With the help of Annemor Sundbøs newest book I hope to make that cardigan even more original.
But first close up shots of this cardigan's right and wrong sides:
And some details from where the cardigan was cut open:
Last night I watched Finland and the monsters of Lordi rock the Eurovision Song Contest and decided to get some work done on my Faroese Sunwheel shawl. So while my ears and eyes were being amused by various European artists my fingers were busy knitting. I cast on 429 stitches for this shawl and even with four stitches decreased every second row there still are a lot of stitches to knit. When the Eurovision started the shawl looked approximately like this:
The Eurovision apparently provided me with much needed knitting time, this morning the shawl had more than doubled in size and I am very pleased with both myself and my growing shawl.
I love this Faroese yarn. It is unwashed so the wool has kept its natural lanolin and its natural colour. The yarn is not particularly soft and it is a little unevenly spun. I love the roughness and the smell and I think it knits up beautifully:
I just have a few rows left of the lace pattern, once that is done, I expect the shawl to grow more quickly. I can't wait to see this shawl washed and blocked. Even though I adore the plain almost primitive beauty of its current state, I am thrilled by thoughts of this shawl's metamorphosis. This was what attracted me to this project in the first place. It reminds me of the story about the ugly duckling.
A few days ago I joined The Amazing Lace knit along and Evelyn A. Clark's Trellis scarf pattern from the spring 2006 issue of Interweave Knits has graciously agreed to become my first (and maybe the only) teammate for this summer of lace. The beginning of our relationsship has been a little bumpy. Trellis and I couldn't reach an agreement about what yarn to pick for the project. Trellis wanted me to find som lace-weight alpaca similar to what the pattern calls for, but I wasnæt so sure. Why go to South-America, I argued, when we can go to your roots? As the introduction in the magazine points out that the Trellis scarf is an adaption of an Estonian lace pattern. When I pulled out a nice big skein of lace-weight variegated yarn from Evilla that just recently found its way to my stash, I was finally able to convince Trellis to give it a try. After all, far away from home, everyone softens up by the sound of their mother tongue. 
I can't speak Estonian, but Trellis is looking forward to a nice long chat that I won't be able to eavsdrop to. While doing the photoshoot they became great friends and Trellis admitted that by now she will be terribly dissapointed if I change my mind and pick someting else.
The Estonian yarn is not as soft and light as the alpaca of the pattern. Our skein weighs 205 grams and if I have done the math correctly (Trellis doesn't want to be bothered with that kind of stuff), it holds over 800 meters of yarn. When I get around to wind up the yarn (probably this weekend) I will make a swatch so Trellis and I can decide if we want to make any modifications. Trellis and I are both very eager to get going, I don't think we can wait until Memorial Day is celebrated in the US.
That is how you should address a sheep when you run into one on the Faroe Islands. And on the Faroe Islands that would probably happen a lot, since the islands are inhabitated by 70 000 sheep, but less than 50 000 people. And sheep are important on the Faroe islands since the third largest industry is woollen products. The Faroese writer Steinbjørn B. Jacobsen says in a poem Av rættini til plagg (From sheep-fold to garment):
Seyðahár
í 1000 ár
átti lívið
í okkum
(For 1000 years we have owed our lives to wool.)
And the wool (or sheep hair as the locals say) is amazing. The other day my order of Faroese yarn arrived and I am very excited about it. It is plain and natural, just the way I like it. You can still both feel and smell the sheep. The yarn is unwashed and the colour is the sheep's own. In its current state, the yarn is not very soft and that's what attracts me to it.
I am so intrigued by the transformation that happens when the knitted garment is washed. Then it becomes soft, light and warm. I can't wait for that to happen, but first I have some serious knitting to do. Yesterday I casted on 429 stitches to make this traditional Faroese shawl for my Mother's aunt. The pattern is called Sunwheel and it's very easy to knit. There is only a small lace pattern at the beginning, the rest is garter stitch. The yarn for the shawl is one ply, for the fringes two ply and I am using 5 mm circular bamboo needles.
As an attempt to minimize my stash I started a baby jacket about two months ago. I am very happy with what I have done so far.
I didn't follow a specific pattern for this project and made it up by "stealing" elements from another baby jacket. I finished the body of the jacket quite quickly, but I had no idea what to do for the sleeves. So, after twisting my head for weeks, I finally came up with a very simple solution that I think is going to be perfect for this jacket:
Now, I really don't know what the fuss was all about and I have learned that simple is often best. One sleeve is done, and I am starting the second tonight. Hopefully, I will be able to seem and do the finishing by the end of next week.
I took my Pomatomus socks travelling this weekend and they walked away from me…
I missed my bus and had to wait two hours for the next. Waiting is never any fun, and airports may very well be one of the more depressing places to be. If you have a sock in progress in your handbag, it is bearable. I had just started my second Pomatomus sock before I left home, and while waiting I knitted the cuff. To the right a picture of the sock as I was getting ready to leave the airport and catch the bus the second time.
Luckily, the bus came as promised and I arrived at my Mother's safe and sound. My Mother was wearing a pair of socks I knitted more than fifteen years ago, they might even be the first socks I ever knitted, and one of them had a large hole in the heel. My Mother also loved my Pomatomus socks. I didn't have much of a choice really, I worked hard to finish the socks before I was leaving this morning. I succeeded, and now my Mother has a brand new pair of Pomatomus socks. She is very happy with them, but she said she still would darn the old socks one last time.
I am also very fond of how the socks turned out. They are very comfortable and have a perfect fit. The yarn is Regia 4 ply color, and I think the colourway works well with the pattern. And now, the finished socks:
